Sustainability from Cradle

Sustainability is a widespread concept recognized globally as a major challenge, calling for transformative shifts toward more compassionate attitudes toward other beings, the natural environment, and future human generations. Education plays a critical role in people’s understanding of sustainability principles and necessity. It is common teaching about sustainability, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to take place in universities, especially in postgraduate level where there is a stronger connection among students, industry, and business world. However, as more global environmental and social issues come up, there is an intense need for a sustainable horizontal transformation in wider layers of human activities. Thus, the teaching of sustainability concepts and values should be integrated across all levels of education, from kindergarten to university, to instill them more effectively and profoundly in individuals from a young age. A basic axis for revealing sustainability content to children is the concept of empathy which can be cultivated through the heroic figures of fairytales. The proposed approach creates an educational framework that teaches through a very pleasant and effective way that is storytelling, kids to care about “the other,” and the planet.